OOP: Disappointing AND Excellent

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 67051

Deb wrote:

> Your disappointment and Phyllis's were finally enough to make me 
>drag out my first impressions, which I mostly wrote nearly a week 
>ago but didn't want to throw into the deluge.  My apologies, as a 
>lot of this has undoubtedly already been said.

Mine too.  I'm also doing some me-tooing throughout this post, but 
mixed in, I hope, with enough original observations to add something 
to the discussion (ARE there any original observations left?  I went 
away for a week two days after the release and have no earthly hope 
of catching up).

> I was also completely unaffected by Sirius' demise, which I thought 
>likely to happen very early in the book, and who was never a 
>favorite character of mine.

I really did not think it was going to happen.  I've had so many 
conversations with people where we agree that of Lupin and Sirius, at 
least one is doomed, and I reluctantly assert that she ought to kill 
Lupin instead, on the logic that killing Sirius would just was just 
too cruel to Harry--crueller than any death except Ron, Hermione, and 
perhaps Hagrid.  Being a reader who identifies heavily with any well-
drawn main character, I ride up and down with Harry's emotions, and I 
sobbed for him until my husband grew concerned and insisted I talk 
about it. 

But *artistically* I loved it.  Or I should say, *because* I was so 
affected, I thought it was a great artistic choice.  This woman pulls 
no punches.  Your parents were already killed in the first war?  The 
Law of Narrative Balance should keep your surrogate dad safe?  Well, 
guess what, he's the first to fall in the second war.  C'est la 
guerre.

I am enjoying it much more on the second read, as I expected.  It's 
bearing out my analysis that my first reading was marred by the 
depression that results from having to absorb too much 
unfamiliarity.  For one thing, the "character" I love best, Hogwarts, 
is barely recognizable--though it still shows in sparks like the 
teachers' resistance to Umbridge and all the delicious details of 
classes and trappings (love Crookshanks chasing the Snitch).  And I 
love this angry Harry--it's about time he got really, really pissed 
about what a raw deal he's gotten--but it was still hard to listen to 
him.  Now that that's not all brand-new, I can settle in and really 
appreciate it.

On the second read, it's funnier, it's darker, and the things that 
just made me homesick on the first read (Sirius's snappishness; 
Percy's transformation from a pompous ass I could feel affection for 
into a complete jerk with the integrity of a tapeworm; Hogwarts's 
becoming a place that even Harry wants to escape) are now adding 
layers and complexity.

> I was also really disappointed with the Dept of Mysteries episode; 
>I felt like I was watching a run-of-the-mill action movie -- a genre 
>I despise 

I felt a bit like this, but more confused than anything else.  I just 
don't follow this kind of scene very well, and they seldom seem to me 
to build.  It's just this person fighting, that person fighting; this 
thing happening, that thing happening; oh, look, that one died.  It's 
probably a lot more realistic than the build-to-a-climax battle 
scenes of well-done action movies, but I find it oddly lacking in 
drama.

> I didn't find the darkness of OOP disturbing.  In fact, I thought 
GoF was a darker book in many ways.  It definitely affected me more.

I was deeply affected, and still am, by all the markings of those 
first stages of grief:  Harry imagines Phineas wandering the house 
looking for Sirius (I LOVED that), he looks at the places he's seen 
Sirius (the Quidditch pitch), he scrambles for some way to see him 
again, he feels the unreality of how most of the people in the world 
neither know nor care that Sirius is gone when to him that fact takes 
up his entire existence--I think of Auden's poem Musee des Beaux-
Arts, about how suffering goes unnoticed as the world goes about its 
business.  

She shows real nerve in writing so vividly about loss.  Really, did 
anyone think for a moment that Sirius would appear in that mirror?  
He's DEAD.  Even if he had had it in his pocket when he sank beyond 
the veil, the meaning of being beyond the veil is that no one can 
talk to you ever again.  JKR doesn't cheat; she doesn't sugarcoat the 
finality of death; when she brings people back from the dead it's 
only to make it more painful--J&L talking to Harry in the graveyard.  

> I thought some of the clues she tucked in were very intriguing --  
>such as the fact that Petunia is familiar with Azkaban -- and I was 
>not at all bothered by the fact that she did not follow up on it; 
>after all, we need some fodder for backstory speculation. ;-) 

I agree completely.  I even wonder if there *was* more going on than 
the Order simply guarding the prophecy, and we will learn it 
eventually.  But it's probably just a Major Plot Hole instead.  ;-)

>On the other hand, I thought a number of things that were irrelevant 
>to the plot were slipped in primarily for the purpose of answering 
>fans' questions -- like why isn't Hermione in 
> Ravenclaw, which is the only one I can think of at the moment. 

This annoyed me too.  There were other bits that were uncomfortably 
amateurish--overly long explanations of motives; adverbs & taglines 
that explained why the characters said and did what they said and did 
instead of just letting us draw our own conclusions, e.g.:

Tonks chuckled.  
"Bet you wouldn't mind hiding that scar sometimes, eh?"
Her eyes found the lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead.
"No, I wouldn't mind," Harry mumbled, turning away.  He did not like 
people staring at his scar.

(Editor to JKR:  delete that last sentence!)

One of my very favorite bits so far was effective precisely *because* 
JKR didn't spell out what was happening inside the character:  

  "He didn't want to go at all!" Harry said angrily.
  Hagrid bowed his great shaggy head.
  "Nah, I don' reckon he did," he said quietly.  "But still, 
Harry . . . he was never one ter sit around at hoem an' let other 
people do the fightin'.  He couldn' have lived with himeself if he 
hadn' gone ter help--"
  Harry leapt up again.
  "I've got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing," 
he said mechanically

and off he goes before Hagrid can even say goodbye.  Hagrid's upset 
but we don't know if he understands what he's done to make Harry 
leave.

I think what's going on is that Harry is tormented by guilt more than 
anything--not only did Sirius die in the course of rescuing him 
(which I think Harry would hate no matter what), but Harry shouldn't 
have needed rescuing--so Hagrid, trying to be comforting, has just 
said the worst possible thing.  I also think it's really sad and 
revealing that Harry got away from Ron and Hermione by saying he has 
to visit Hagrid, and is now getting away from Hagrid by saying he has 
to visit Ron and Hermione.  And if JKR had pointed any of this out, 
the strength of the scene would have been greatly diminished.  I 
think she overwrote too many other bits.

> I also thought there were more than the usual number of plot 
contrivances -- Hermione's apparent avoidance of her seemingly loving 
and exemplary parents because it's important that she be on hand at 
appropriate moments; the need for the Weasleys to spend the summer at 
Grimmauld Place for no apparent purpose other than to get Harry there 
and to do some overdue housecleaning and then to leave at the end of 
the summer so Sirius could go stir-crazy and do something rash, just 
to name two.

The former, sure, the latter, I don't see.  We know the Burrow 
is "too risky"; she doesn't spell out why, which is fine.  Let us 
think up our own reasons.

What did bother me, as usual, was the backstory writing.  She did it 
much better than in PA or, God knows, GF <cringes anew at the visions 
of Ron and Hermione reacting to the news of his scar hurting, 
complete with long nose . . . argh>.  But I really think no one would 
follow OP who hadn't read GF; I guess she is writing all that stuff 
about the graveyard for those who HAVE read GF but only once, three 
years ago (I do have to remind myself that such people exist), but it 
bugs me.  And anyone who doesn't already know that Voldemort killed 
Harry's parents but couldn't kill him should have their literacy 
license revoked, and certainly shouldn't be sold a copy of OOP 
(chapter 4).  And she still feels the need to tell us physical 
characteristics, as if it makes the slightest difference that Bill 
has a ponytail, or as if we won't get the whole picture of Arthur 
unless we are reminded that he's redhaired and balding.  I understand 
why physical characteristics are a part of initial descriptions, and 
JKR usually does that part very well.  But repeating them constantly 
is just silly.  At least she didn't tell us about the scar in the 
opening description of Harry.

> I was still annoyed with the gender characterization in OOP.  JKR 
>did demonstrate that there are women in significant Ministry 
>positions, but the only one that gets developed is unrelentingly 
>evil.  In fact, she's given us two Evil Women.  

Well, that's progress, for JKR.  We haven't had much in the way of 
Evil Women, and if she throws in enough female stereotypes then her 
gender characterization will cease to be stereotypical--just as 
currently, men take enough different shapes that although many are 
stereotyped, they aren't tokenized.

It's also essential to have complex women and girls, and I think Luna 
is complex and Ginny, Molly and McGonagall are all more complex than 
they were in previous books.  Even small touches like Amelia Bones, a 
Cho who actually has opinions and loses her temper, and the Wood-
channelling Angelina help in this way.  And I loved Tonks, though I 
think her clumsiness is overdone (I was SO worried it would prove to 
be a Fatal Flaw).  She has a sense of humor, just for a start ("Wand 
still in your jeans?  Both buttocks still on?  Okay, let's go.").

As a sidenote, I love the way JKR all but equates crimes against good 
taste with crimes against humanity; a cutesy style of dress and 
cheesy wall decorations are a sure sign that someone's a barely-
closeted sadist.  Remember her drawing of the Dursleys' living room 
and how she ranted about ugly white vases?  Of course, she owes an 
apology to those readers who actually like gamboling-kittens 
collectors' plates. 

>Molly, OTOH, is shown as the OOP member in charge of the 
>headquarters housecleaning team. 

But it isn't housecleaning; as Harry observes, it's a war.  And Molly 
has Edge.  She takes on Sirius:  often unfairly, may I say.  I mean, 
picking on him for not being available to Harry while he was in 
prison on a frame-up?  Methinks she's a bit threatened by her 
surrogate son having another surrogate parent, which is a nice Edge 
added to the earth mother persona.  Also, we now know what we didn't 
at the close of GF, which is that she's been in the Order twice now.

>And while we saw both Hermione and Ginny take active roles, they 
>were there to support the hero.  

I don't see this either--certainly not with Hermione, who if anything 
is way too right.  Everything she warns Harry about turns out to be 
correct.  Of course since the hero is male there's always an element 
of all other characters supporting him, but I didn't think the female 
characters were supportive qua female characters.  If Hermione's 
lines were given to Ron and vice versa, would you think Ron was 
portrayed as purely a support for the hero?

The jury's still out on JKR's writing of women, but I'm much happier 
with it than I was two weeks ago.

> My sense, on first read, was that OOP was more about character, 
responsibility and mentorship, and less about plot, than the other 
books.  Even though I had predicted where JKR was going with many of 
the characters, I think her character development was one of the 
strengths of OOP overall and something that connected OOP 
thematically to the prior books.  

Excellent observation.

> Harry -- IMO, it was critical to the story arc for Harry to fail in 
a significant way. 

Yeah!

> Hermione -- Hermione was *way* too successful in OOP.

I agree (see above).

>  She made all the right choices, it seemed, giving her a new Super-
>Hermione flavor.  On the other hand, she was snappish, strident and 
>impatient with others.  The only suggestion of failure here is in 
>her campaign to free the house-elves.  It failed, but she's still 
>unaware of that fact.  

I like that.

> Ron -- I think JKR was quite effective here by awarding him 
responsibilities but letting us readers know that he had not earned 
either one.  

Like David, I'm not seeing this.  The clear implication is that Harry 
was first choice for prefect, but that doesn't exactly make Ron 
chopped liver.

Another good bit of juxtaposition to show Ron finally pulling it 
together once he was completely left to his own devices at the same 
time Harry was experiencing failure for the first time.  

Yeah!  Though it's not the first time Harry's experienced failure.  
He screws up regularly and knows it (slowness to learn Patronus 
charm, near-disastrous procrastination throughout GF, etc.).
 
> Lupin --  I was a bit disappointed that Lupin did not have a 
>greater role, but JKR has done a great job with his character.  The 
>fact that he was made a prefect and failed to do anything about 
>squelching James and Sirius' extracurricular activities fits 
>perfectly with what we know about him to date.  

Yes, it fits, and yet it adds something we didn't know.  I like that.

Lupin doesn't get a lot of screen time, but he has a lot of small 
moments--glances, comments, the visit to the newly-infected werewolf--
that fill out his character.

> Snape (and Sirius) --  I agree that Snape didn't get a lot of 
development here, and nothing I learned about him was a surprise.

As with Lupin, I liked the small moments with Snape, e.g. watching 
him indulge his hatred of Harry by letting it infuse his deceit 
against Umbridge in chapter 32 (you know he *means* it when he says 
he'd sympathize if she wanted to poison Harry).  I'm frankly shocked 
that he couldn't see how his cruelty and rigidity of teaching style 
were seriously undermining his mission in teaching Harry Occlumency--
as if you can approach mindreading with the same insensitivity you 
use in teaching potions and expect your student to learn anything--
but that's for another post.  I know that subject's gotten lots of 
attention, and I'd better see what others have written.

> Neville -- I was totally wrong about Neville; I didn't want to see 
him kicking DE butt, but JKR pulled it off in a truly wonderful way.

I agree completely.  I didn't feel that he was Embracing the Warrior 
Ethic (though JKR definitely has no tolerance for at least one kind 
of pacifism, the [IMO] false pacifism that is appeasement--note the 
chapter titles of the DADA textbook).  He was the Neville we know and 
love but with a depth of feeling that we've known was there since his 
sleepless nights in GF, and with a determination to take action 
that's always been there but must now take the form of learning 
Defense, not just getting in the Trio's way when they're headed out 
of bounds.  I loved the St. Mungo's scene (completely agree with 
David's interpretation) and his losing it at Malfoy, without 
explaining why his comment about addled brains was so enraging nor 
knowing that anyone there understands.  It's as if JKR doesn't want 
him to become the Wimp-turned-Warrior either, so when he's being 
genuinely brave and heroic she makes him sound adenoidal.  

Amy Z

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  "Your examination results will reflect upon the headmistress's new 
regime at the school. . . ."
   Professor McGonagall gave a tiny sigh.  Harry saw the nostrils of 
her sharp nose flare.
   "However, that is no reason not to do your very best."